"For information about how Health care Reform affects you or your small business, call John Caris at 707-935-6294 x103 or Contact him."

Barack Obama wanted to change American health care as we know it. And he is, in ways that go far beyond the goals of the Affordable Care Act.For weeks, headlines have cataloged the upheaval at private employers: UPS dropping coverage for employed spouses, IBM reworking retiree benefits. Yesterday came the biggest change: Walgreen Co. (WAG), the largest U.S. drugstore chain, told 160,000 workers they must buy insurance through a private exchange rather than having the company arrange their coverage.

None of the moves was dictated by the health-care law. All, though, have occurred in an environment shaped by Obamacare, which has pushed businesses and governments to reexamine their health-care role as costs soar and national priorities shift. The act now is giving businesses cover to loosen the decades-old link between jobs and health insurance, a shift that may further cloud the outlook for an already unpopular law.

“It’s going to be easy for conservatives who can’t beat up on this enough to point more fingers,” said Robert Laszewski, an insurance-industry consultant based in Arlington, Virginia. “If you pass the largest health-care reform bill in 50 years, then everything that happens in terms of people’s health insurance is your responsibility, fair or not.”

The decisions are an unintended consequence of the law that may drive up taxpayer costs, he said Laszewski. Stanford University researchers voiced similar concern in a study last week. Rising premiums could drive workers from employer plans to coverage under the health law, they wrote in a report, boosting costs for the government by as much as $6.7 billion.

Costs ModerateMedical costs have moderated in the U.S. the past three years, offering relief to the public and private sector alike. Prices for medical care rose 1 percent in July compared with a year earlier, the lowest growth rate since the 1960s, according to U.S. Commerce Department data. Economists have credited the health-care law, a weak economy and less-generous health plans.

Home Depot Inc. (HD) said today that it would drop medical plans for about part-time workers and direct them to the government-sponsored insurance websites scheduled to open next year as part of the health law. About 20,000 employees would be affected, Stephen Holmes, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based retailer, said in a telephone interview.

With Congress engaged in a bitter feud over funding the 2010 law, worries over benefits offer Republicans yet another line of attack, said Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at theBrookings Institution in Washington, in a telephone interview.

’Bad News’“It has to be bad news for Obama,” Hess said. “Working out a successful health-care system has to be his legacy.”

The Obama administration says it’s confident the law will gain support as people, particularly the uninsured, see its benefits.

“One of the largest uninsured populations right now are the 55- to 65-year-old who may not have affordable coverage through their jobs,” said Kathleen Sebelius, the U.S. health secretary, at a stop last week in Newark, New Jersey. “The good news is that those people will finally have an affordable option.”

It’s not only business reassessing costs. Detroit and Chicago have proposed ending health plans for current or retired municipal workers, since they’ll be able to buy subsidized coverage through the health-care law. The Cleveland Clinic, one of the world’s foremost medical centers, announced yesterday it’s considering layoffs, partly to prepare for cuts in Medicare payments contained in the law.

’In the Mode’“What the ACA has done is put all 300 million-plus Americans in the mode of thinking about health care,” said Jim Winkler, a chief innovation officer at Aon Plc. (AON) The London-based company runs the private exchange that will serve Walgreen’s employees.

“You’ve got CEOs reading articles and going to conferences, and that leads to a lot of discussions with Finance and HR about, ‘What are you going to do to solve our health-care cost problem?’” Winkler said by telephone.

The shift by big employers, which administer medical plans for 160 million Americans, could cause headaches for a law designed mainly to help the uninsured and small businesses.

Polls show support for Obamacare shrinking, even as the administration prepares for the Oct. 1 debut of the online insurance exchanges where Americans can buy subsidized coverage under the act. Fifty-seven percent of Americans opposed the health-care law in a poll this month byCNN/ORC, a turnaround from January when the survey found 51 percent in support.

What the changes mean for workers is harder to predict.

New ChoicesIBM and Walgreen said employees will find more choice and, potentially, cheaper coverage by going through private exchanges, websites that will work similar to the new Obama markets, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all company plan.

That also puts the onus on workers to pick the right plan, an often complex choice now handled largely by human-resources professionals. Much also depends on whether employers continue to subsidize the plans and at what level, said Uwe Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton University in New Jersey.

“The companies realized they cannot continue to be a social insurance system for the American people,” he said by e-mail. Businesses, he said, have been “woken up by the ACA.”

Aon jumped 5.6 percent in New York trading yesterday, after the Walgreen announcement. Insurers fell. Investors are worried their business may suffer in the transition away from traditional benefits, Matthew Borsch, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst, said in a note to clients.

Employers that announced changes in recent weeks said the health-care overhaul was one consideration among many. The law will raise costs for some businesses by imposing new taxes and requiring more generous benefits for existing workers.

United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) said in August it would no longer provide benefits to employed spouses of 15,000 non-union workers, since they must be offered coverage by their own companies under the Affordable Care Act. Atlanta-based UPS also cited rising medical costs in general for their decision, particularly expenses for chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.

IBM, based in Armonk, New York, said the move was made to help keep premiums low for the 110,000 Medicare-age workers affected by the switch.

’Moral Imperative’Last week, Trader Joe’s Co., the closely held supermarket chain, said it would end health benefits next year for part-time workers. Employees will get a $500 payment and be sent to the public exchanges. With federal tax credits available there, most workers will get a better deal than the company could offer, Trader Joe’s said in a statement.

By offering other insurance options, “Obamacare has taken the moral imperative away for employers to continue offering coverage,” said Laszewski, the industry consultant. “The days of your father’s health insurance are over.”

Companies have been grappling with insurance costs since well before Obama signed the law, said Aon’s Winkler. Businesses have been curtailing spousal coverage and retiree benefits for more than a decade, he said.

“I cringe when I see headlines that suggest that the Affordable Care Act is driving all this,” Winkler said. “It’s certainly a factor that employers have to be looking at, but it is not the strategy in and of itself.”

"For personalized advice about how Health care Reform affects you or your small business, call John Caris at 707-935-6294 x103 or Contact him."